Status: 13.10.2023, 16:00 PM
By: Franziska Kaindl
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On 2 October, the deadline for filing the tax return expired. At this point, at the latest, it is the turn of the tax offices to check the information – but how does it actually work?
If you prepare your tax return without a tax consultant or income tax assistance association, you often ask yourself whether you have overlooked an important piece of information. The image of a tax official who meticulously checks the tax return and discovers the error quickly appears in the mind's eye. In reality, however, things look quite different: In the meantime, software takes over the examination of the tax return, as tax consultant Oliver Hagen reveals, according to the online portal Capital. He himself was a tax official for many years.
How are tax returns checked at the tax office?
Not every tax return is necessarily scrutinized in its entirety by an employee. A computer checks the information with various programs for various plausibility, as Katharina Hecker, former spokeswoman for the North Rhine-Westphalia Higher Finance Directorate, revealed to Stiftung Warentest a few years ago. Taxpayers, however, need not hope that cheating will go unnoticed more easily.
If the tax office's software notices discrepancies in the tax return, a clerk must be called in. © Zoonar/Imago
If discrepancies are detected – which is also what the program is trained to do – then the tax return in question is once again submitted to a clerk for checking, as Hagen explains. In this context, the software already provides them with hints on what they should take a closer look at. For example, large donations can be conspicuous if none has ever been made in previous years. "Extremely high advertising costs or kindergarten fees are also noticeable," says Hagen.
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Tax return: Where cheating is immediately noticeable
The tax office now receives a lot of data automatically – so it's not worth cheating here. According to the Steuerring Income Tax Assistance Association, these include:
- Income tax data (provided by the employer)
- Contributions to health insurance (transmitted by the health insurance company)
- Wage replacement benefits such as unemployment benefit or sickness benefit (provided by the Employment Agency or health insurance companies)
- Church Affiliation
- Pensions (provided by statutory pension insurance institutions or by private insurance companies)
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Even about income that you receive via marketplaces such as Ebay, Etsy or Vinted, the tax office has been informed since January 1, 2023. This is made possible by the so-called "Platform Tax Transparency Act". As soon as you have sold more than 30 items a year or earn more than 2,000 euros, the platform must submit this to the tax authorities. The situation is similar for profits that you have received through real estate transactions. Notaries have to pass on the contracts of a purchase or sale to the tax office - this is about real estate transfer, inheritance and income taxes, as the online portal Capital informs. Anyone who tries to embezzle such sums quickly gets into trouble with the tax office.